Flooring Workmanship Inspection: What to Check Before the Final Payment, Hardwood, Vinyl Plank, Tile and Stairs, With the Tolerances

How to look at a floor

Stand at the door with the light behind you and look along the floor, not down at it. Then put the flashlight on the floor and shine it across the surface at a low angle; every ridge, lip and dip throws a shadow. Walk every room slowly in socks, heel first, listening. Kneel at the walls and lift the edge of your eye to the baseboard line. Most of what you will find, you will find in those four minutes. The straightedge and the tape are for proving it.

Write everything down in a list, with the room and a photo. Do not argue about any single item on the spot; hand over the list, agree on a date for the fixes, and pay the completion draw less a fair amount for the list. The installer who pushes back on a written list is pushing back on his own work being looked at.

Hardwood and engineered

1. Gaps between boards. Tight in October, when the house is at its summer humidity. A hairline you cannot fit a business card into is a wood floor; a gap you can drop a dime into on day one is a floor that was installed too wet or too dry. What is seasonal and what is a claim.
2. Expansion gap at the walls. 1/2 to 3/4 in. for nail-down, hidden under the baseboard. If the baseboard was not removed and quarter-round was added, lift the quarter-round in one spot; a floor jammed tight to the wall buckles the first July.
3. Squeaks and movement. Walk every board you can. A squeak is a loose board or a loose subfloor and is a day-one fix, not a “wood settles” conversation.
4. Flatness. A 10-ft straightedge across the floor should show no more than 3/16 in. of daylight anywhere. That was the subfloor’s job; if it was not done, the floor tells you.
5. Face nails, filler and finish. The first and last rows get face-nailed and filled; the filler should match and be flush. On prefinished boards look for chipped edges and hammer tracks, especially at the last row by the wall where the pull bar lives.
6. End joints staggered at least 6 in., ideally more, no H-patterns or stair steps across the room. Transitions at the doorways flat, tight and screwed, not glued to the surface.

Vinyl plank and laminate

1. The click. Run your hand across every joint you can reach. A joint you can feel is a joint that is not locked, and it will open and show a line of white core within a year.
2. Gap at the walls of 1/4 to 3/8 in. under the trim, and the trim nailed to the wall, not through the floor. A floating floor pinned by a baseboard nail or a kitchen island is a floor that peaks at the opposite end. Peaking, gaps and bounce.
3. T-moulds at doorways where a run passes 30 to 40 ft, or wherever the manufacturer’s sheet says. Nobody likes them. The alternative is a buckled hall.
4. Bounce and hollow spots. Press with your heel every few feet; the floor should not dip or drum. That is a subfloor void or a missed levelling spot under a floor that cannot bridge it.
5. Pattern. End joints staggered and random, no repeating plank images side by side, cut pieces at the walls no shorter than about 8 in.

Tile

1. Lippage. The step between neighbouring tiles. ANSI allows 1/32 in. for grout joints under 1/4 in. and 1/16 in. for wider joints, plus whatever warpage the tile itself has. A credit card is about 1/32 in. thick; if it catches hard on edges across the room, the setting was rushed or the floor was not flat enough. What is acceptable.
2. Hollow sounds. Tap tiles with a coin or your knuckle; a hollow note means missing mortar underneath, and that tile cracks the first time something is dropped on it. A few hollow spots at the edges happen; a hollow room does not.
3. Grout. Full, even, the same colour everywhere, no pinholes, no smears left on the tile face. Grout lines straight and the same width. Cracked grout on day one is a movement problem that grout will not solve.
4. Movement joints. Where tile meets a wall, a tub, a cabinet or a different floor, the joint is caulked, not grouted. Grout there cracks within a season.
5. Shower floor. Pour a bucket of water. It goes to the drain at about 1/4 in. per foot with no puddles; a puddle in the corner is a slope mistake you will live with every morning. Check the waterproofing was photographed before tile, or you are taking the pan on faith. What should have been seen before tile.
6. Cuts. Clean at the walls and around the toilet flange, no chipped edges showing, full tiles in the doorway and the cuts at the far wall.

Stairs

Stairs are where a flooring job shows its character, because every tread is a piece of furniture and every riser is in your eye line. Each tread level across and front to back, no rock, no squeak under a hard step. Nosing overhang even, about 1 to 1-1/4 in., and the same on every step; your foot learns the first three and expects the rest. Risers tight to the treads with no gap, returns on open treads mitred clean, the top nosing flush with the landing floor so nothing catches a toe. Stain colour the same on every tread; stair parts from two batches look like two staircases. On carpet stairs, tight on the nose, no wrinkles at the back, and the pad not showing at the sides. Treads here run $150 each boxed and finished, so the fourteen on an ordinary house are a $2,100 item worth ten minutes of looking at. What stairs cost and why.

Questions people ask

Sources and further reading

• National Wood Flooring Association: the installation guidelines every hardwood warranty points to: subfloor flatness, moisture limits, acclimation, fastening schedules and the radiant-heat chapter.
• Tile Council of North America: the TCNA Handbook methods for tile over wood, concrete and in showers, and the ANSI lippage and grout standards a tile setter is held to.
• Tarion warranty coverage: what a new-home warranty covers for flooring gaps, cupping, cracked tile and squeaks in year one and year two, and the Construction Performance Guidelines it measures them by.